The Rebel Armz is a crew of radical street hip-hoppers that have grown up around the well known revolutionary fire breather/rapper Immortal Technique. MCs include Akir, Hasan Salaam, Diabolic, Demics, Constant Flow (C.F.), Chino XL and the duo of Da Circle. They team up with DJs like DJ GI Joe, DJ Static and DJ Snips. Lots of folks have heard of IT, but not many have been exposed to the skills and message of the other members of the Rebel Armz. Because I’m on vacation, and because I like to promote radical MCs and bands, here’s a selection from the artists of Rebel Armz.

Manning Marable’s rendition of Malcolm X’s life should be read very carefully, so as not to confuse Malcolm’s evolving worldview with the late Columbia University professor’s left-reformist politics. “Marable tries to convince us that Malcolm must have contemplated a reformist political path in his mind, if not in practice.” The author’s mission is to discredit revolutionary Black nationalism as outdated and primitive. Black Democratic Party activism and support for President Obama are hyped as the new Black Power.

In packaging the life of Malcolm X for a wide audience, the late Dr. Manning Marable has presented us with an opportunity to reignite the debate over the meaning of Black self-determination, a discussion-through-struggle that effectively ended when the Black Freedom Movement became no longer worthy of the name. Unfortunately, it appears this was not Dr. Marable’s intention, since Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention is largely an attempt to render useless the vocabulary of Black struggle. Essential terms such as “self-determination,” “Black nationalism,” “revolutionary” and “empowerment” lose their meaning, abused and misused in order to portray the great Black nationalist leader as inexorably evolving into a “race-neutral” reformer on the road to Obamaland. Read the rest of this entry →